The Wisconsin Badgers are off to a 7-3 start this season, and if there’s one word that defines their early stretch, it’s “inconsistent.” They’ve flashed offensive firepower in spurts, but they’ve also stumbled through some tough losses-none more glaring than the 90-60 blowout at the hands of Nebraska. Still, there’s a clear shift in how this team is trying to play, and it starts with the tempo.
Under head coach Greg Gard, Wisconsin has long been known for a methodical, grind-it-out style of basketball. But this year?
Things are different. The Badgers currently rank 62nd in tempo nationally-by far the fastest pace they’ve played under Gard.
For some perspective, last season’s team ranked 149th, which was previously the highest mark in his tenure. So yes, this is uncharted territory.
Much of that uptick in pace can be traced to point guard Nick Boyd, who’s been pushing the ball in transition and getting Wisconsin into early offense. And it’s not just the Badgers dictating the tempo-some of their opponents have sped things up as well. But that raises the question: is this pace part of the plan, or are they getting caught up in a track meet they didn’t sign up for?
After the loss to Nebraska, Gard didn’t shy away from addressing the issue. He pointed directly to shot selection and defensive breakdowns as key culprits in the lopsided defeat.
“When you start really going up and down, like if we can lock it into the half court, that’s the challenge,” Gard said. “Everybody’s defense is best when you get it set, but when you play in transition a lot, which we do both ways, part of what led into our defensive shortcomings were quick shots.”
That Nebraska game was a perfect example of how poor offensive decisions can snowball into defensive chaos. The Badgers launched 32 threes in that game-15 of which, by Gard’s count, were “bad shots.” That’s nearly half, and according to Gard, it was the worst shot selection percentage the team has had all year.
“We got very impatient,” he said. “We were good the first five minutes, but then, for whatever reason, the last 35, we thought we had a better idea of how to attack the offensive end, and that affects your defense when you’re quick shooting and taking bad threes. Now you’re caught in transition, and then we get scattered.”
To be clear, Gard isn’t against shooting threes. He’s just emphasizing smarter shot selection-quality over quantity. The message to his team is simple: keep taking threes, but take better ones.
“In general, the whole theory is make sure we’re back, make sure [the] offense is really good,” he continued. “We want stuff at the rim.
I told the team, not less threes, better threes, and if we take better ones, the results will be better. It’ll help set our defense, get to the free throw line more by playing through the paint more, and then get back, get our defense set.
So we’re not playing in scramble mode as much as we were that night.”
It’s a balancing act-pushing the pace without losing control, playing fast without playing reckless. The Badgers are clearly still figuring that out. They’ve shown glimpses of what this offense can be when it’s humming, but they’ve also shown how quickly things can unravel when the tempo gets ahead of their discipline.
This is still a team learning how to play together, especially at this new speed. There’s promise in the pace, no doubt. But if Wisconsin wants to turn that promise into consistent success, it starts with smarter decisions, better shot selection, and a commitment to setting their defense.
They’ll get another chance to put those lessons into action when they take on Villanova at the Fiserv Forum on Friday-a matchup that should tell us a lot about where this Badgers team is headed.